Ohlsdorf Cemetery

In the nineteenth century Hamburg moved its burial grounds to the edge of the city: in 1874 it bought about 130 hectares in Ohlsdorf, and in 1876 Wilhelm Cordes was commissioned to plan the cemetery. He directed it until his death in 1917 and designed the western Cordesteil, with its curving paths, as well as the early chapels. His successor Otto Linne laid out the strictly geometric eastern Linneteil from 1919. In 1900 Cordes and the Hamburg Senate received a Grand Prix at the Paris World Exhibition.

Architectural highlights include Chapel 13 by Fritz Schumacher (1929), the Ohlendorff mausoleum by Martin Haller and the statue of Christ by Xaver Arnold in the Old Hamburg Memorial Cemetery. The rose garden, around 450 species of trees and shrubs and ponds such as the Prökelmoorteich shape the parkland. The grounds also contain the Jewish cemetery at Ilandkoppel and the Ohlsdorfer Ruhewald, opened in 2006.

Many well-known people are buried here, among them the painter Philipp Otto Runge, the art museum director Alfred Lichtwark, the architect Fritz Schumacher, the theatre figures Gustaf Gründgens and Ida Ehre, and Hans Albers and Helmut Schmidt. The cemetery administration lists about 580 prominent graves, which can be located with an app.